


Because

by wargoddess



Series: Conjunctions [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Depression, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Paragon Commander Shepard, Synthesis Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:03:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the immediate aftermath, everyone worried about Cortez. No one thought to worry for Alenko.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because

     In the immediate aftermath, everyone worried for Cortez.  They'd seen it before with him, after Robert's death:  the creeping silences, the emptiness of his face, the stillness.  Normally he was a man who smiled easily.  A man of well-earned laugh-lines and quick flirtatious eyes and casual touches, and a voice that could drop more innuendo in a single shift of inflection than most people could in whole conversations.  _How am I supposed to get anything done with you hanging around?_ said low and husky, reverberating with warmth, so soft that the hangar bay recorders almost hadn't picked it up.  For those who'd known him before Robert, seeing all that fade to nothing, to duty-obsession and banter that held no heat, must have been like watching someone become a husk in slow motion.

     Vega had done what he could, but of course it had taken Shepard, mighty Shepard, Shepard who noticed everything and always knew just the right thing to say at just the right time, to break through Cortez's grief.  Shepard, who had later turned to Cortez in his own loneliness, a soul at the breaking point seeking one who'd already passed it and lived to tell the tale.  And suddenly Cortez was happy again, his smiles unfurling like solar sails and dragging Vega and Shepard and everyone else with him -- and with the whole quadding galaxy coming apart around them, that was a true miracle.  Because of Shepard.

     Shepard, who was now dead.

     Everyone worried about Cortez.  No one thought to worry about Alenko.

#

     Not even Alenko himself, at first.  Everyone was grieving in those days -- or freaking out because their skin now had a weird reflective sheen under certain kinds of light, or because the Reapers were approaching planets they'd half destroyed and sheepishly (as sheepish as they got, anyway) offering to fix what they'd broken.  But on the _Normandy_ , mostly, it was grief.  Because Shepard had been their collective heart and driving will, and how was anybody supposed to keep it together without that?

     But as the weeks passed and the ship needed repairs and the food stores started to run low (except dextro nutrient paste, they had enough of that to last years, and only poor Vakarian and Tali'Zorah to eat it), and they started counting the days 'til they could get off the goddessforsaken undeveloped garden world they'd crashed on (levo-amino, thankfully; took care of the food problem as soon as they figured out what was safe to hunt and gather)... everyone started to recover.  Vakarian was the one who'd first proposed a shipwide game of kowla, some krogan sport he'd heard of, though they quickly modified the rules when it became clear that only krogan could play it without severe injuries.  Most of Shepard's squad joined in, and to everyone's shock it was Tali who won -- though she sort of cheated, programming her drone to carry the goal-stick through the (pretend) minefield to the (pretend) viper-pit and down the (pretend) spike-wall to the hidden goal socket.  It was hilarious, the first laugh most of the gang had had in weeks, and from the sidelines where he was watching, Alenko thought about smiling. 

     Instead, he considered the fact that the urge to do so was not there.  Would have been easy to smile anyway, of course.  He'd done it before -- at Jump Zero, on Horizon where everyone hated him, in a hundred encounters with biotics-haters and human-haters and the occasional leftover multiracial-haters and bisexual-haters and one very persnickety biotic-bisexual-Singaporean-Canadian-hater. That was the thing, though:  fake smiles were for people who hated him.  For these people, this crew who'd been through hell and had gone back for seconds and even thirds -- no.  For them, he showed what he felt.

     And what he felt was nothing.  Less than nothing.  Stillness.

     He turned to go back into the ship, and did not notice Cortez glance toward his back briefly, from the playing field.

#

     "Major," said Cortez, by way of greeting. 

     It was quiet in the crew quarters now that the ship was flying again.  Everyone had duties.  Kaidan was pretty sure he had some too, given that the transmitter had been repaired and they could receive extranet messagebursts again.  Probably lots of orders for a Spectre in the wake of galactic near-annihilation.  He'd spent the morning looking at old security footage from around the ship.  The apocalypse was over; everything else could wait.

     But he replied, "Lieutenant," even though they were past all that.  He'd seen Cortez dance -- worse than Shepard, amazingly -- and Cortez had seen him drunk.  But using the man's last name felt too familiar, somehow.  "Done with your shift?"

     Cortez sat down at the table across from him, an easy smile on his lips.  Alenko thought about envying him.  "Still not enough bandwidth, without the relays to help carry the signal, to process requisitions or procurement orders."  He shrugged.  "That'll change as we get closer to Citadel and Alliance space, though.  Want me to order you a beer in advance?  Ought to be ready by the time we get to Earth."  In a year or so.

     "I think I can wait," Alenko said.  Cortez chuckled.

     "Guess I win that bet.  Shepard always said you'd do anything for a good Canadian lager."

     Oh.  "How much was the bet?"

     "Ten credits."

     "Sorry to have cost you your retirement."

     "Somehow I will go on."  Cortez sat back, still smiling in that easy way.  And suddenly, belatedly, Alenko registered that Cortez had used it, that low voice full of meaning entirely separate from what the words said.  Cortez had used that voice on _him_.  Why?

     "You doing all right, Major?" Cortez asked.

     He had no idea what those words meant. 

     "I get my work done, Lieutenant." Enough to avoid the appearance of incompetence, anyway.  He was functional.  That was what mattered.

     "Wow."  Cortez's flinch was genuine.  "Never realized how slap-in-the-face that sounded, 'til now."

     "What?"

     Cortez shook his head.  "Shepard asked me how I was doing, once.  Back at the beginning.  When I was... Robert was on my mind a lot back then.  I told him, 'I get my rest, Commander.'  Wasn't what he'd asked."  A slow shrug accompanied this.  "It was a brush-off, and he called me on it."

     Interesting.  "What did he say?"

     Cortez propped his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers, casually.  "He told me I wasn't alone.  That I had the crew.  And him."  He shrugged again.  "I didn't want to care about that.  Didn't want to care about much of anything, really."

     Alenko wondered if this was some sort of attempt at conveying fellow-feeling.  But Cortez sighed and got up and the moment was over, not that it really mattered anyway.

     Until Cortez, passing on his way to look at the public extranet unit they'd gotten up and running on the quarters desk, stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.  Alenko controlled his reaction with the same iron will he used to channel dark energy through nerve and cyberfilament, and did not jump -- though it was a near thing.  There were no pithy words to accompany the gesture on Cortez's part.  Nothing Alenko could dismiss as unnecessary and pointless.  Just that hand, heavy and strong and human-warm through the fabric of his uniform, a little shocking on a ship kept cool for the comfort of multiple species.  Just a little squeeze, gripping his shoulder and upper deltoid, and release.  Then Cortez moved on.  When Alenko stood to leave, he caught a glimpse of the interface and thought Cortez might be sending someone an email.

     Alenko headed to the observation deck.  He stared out at the stars as he so often had when Shepard was alive, thinking of nothing, resolutely not thinking of his dead father or the destroyed Earth they were returning to, or the fact that the man he'd desired and admired for so long was dead after saving the whole galaxy.  And after choosing someone else.

     Idly now and again, he rubbed the shoulder Cortez had touched, as if it pained him.

#

     Technically Alenko was the ranking officer on the ship.  Practically this was irrelevant; Vakarian and EDI and T'soni and Tali'Zorah weren't Alliance, and the people who _were_ Alliance knew how to do their jobs just fine without Alenko's oversight.  So the only thing he used his rank to do was access security vids.  He did this at night, while sitting in Shepard's quarters; technically they were his quarters now.  He hadn't touched the bed yet -- he slept on the couch -- just the private terminal.  Wasn't sleeping much, anyway.  Might as well find some way to pass the time.

     He'd started by watching recordings of the year he'd missed in Shepard's life, after turning him away on Horizon.  Shepard donning the Cerberus uniform and grimacing at himself in the mirror.  Shepard gathering a crew of the best and brightest and deadliest, and somehow making it work even when they hated each other.  Shepard using that crew to do what the Alliance could not, would not; Shepard saving that crew when the Collectors would have reduced them to component atoms.  (His skin crawled at the footage of a scion in the Obs lounge where he so often stood.  Doing nothing for a moment, just _pulsing_ , and maybe enjoying the view with what was left of its human minds.)  Shepard chafing in the Illusive Man's grasp, and finally telling his crew that he was going back to Earth to turn himself in to the Alliance, and they could come with him or escape as they pleased.

     Shepard smiling at Garrus, and that smile turning regretful as the turian turned away.

     He'd stopped the vid there.  Exited.  Sat there for awhile.  Searched the directory again, then started an earlier vid, from two years before and from the first Normandy. God knew how Cerberus had gotten the footage. Maybe EDI had stolen it while the ship was in dry dock.

     Shepard smiling at Alenko himself, and that smile turning regretful as Alenko turned away.

     Stop.  Exit. 

     Click on an earlier vid.

     Shepard in his quarters, lying restless atop the sheets.  Shepard sighing as if in resignation and putting a hand down to slide under his belt.  Shepard groaning softly, hand working steadily under the fabric of his fatigues, free hand sliding up his shirt and along the ridges of his own belly as if --

     _I remember that day_ , Alenko thought suddenly, without quite intending to think.  The day he'd turned away and missed the regretful look Shepard had thrown at his back.  Shepard had said, _We need to talk_ , and Kaidan had said, _Whatever you say, sir_ , and Shepard had sort of _flinched_.

     -- as if he was imagining someone else's hand on his skin.

     Pause.  Zoom in.

     The flex of Shepard's hand beneath his belt was hypnotic.  Steady, relentless.  He rolled onto his side, panting, eyes shut, lost in the fantasy -- though pausing once to frantically yank open his belt and the fastening of his fatigues.  Then back at it, cock thick and mouth-wateringly hard against his belly, hand pumping and circling and rolling the foreskin up and back again with the skill of long experience.  Free hand higher now, under the shirt, tickling at an unseen nipple.  (Alenko's own nipples tingled, in sympathy.)  And as the vid-Shepard shuddered and gasped -- no groaning, no noise other than that gasp, that's how you learn to do it in boot camp when you share a barracks with twenty other jarheads -- and came over his fingers in quick dribbles, Alenko closed his eyes.  It felt wrong to see this.  It felt --

     "K-Kaidan," whispered Shepard's voice, shaky and breathless and unmistakeable in the vid's audio.  "Oh, fuck.  _Kaidan_."

     -- God.

     Stop.  Exit.

     He fast-forwarded through more vids of Shepard in his quarters, ignoring the banalities of the man's life, looking for... actually he wasn't sure.  Not more vids of Shepard jerking off, though there weren't many of those.  Something else.

     He slowed to normal speed at the sight of Shepard alone in his room again, at the terminal this time, fully dressed.  There was no visual to accompany the image -- Shepard wasn't important enough to merit a private QEC at this stage -- but Hackett's voice was distinctive enough to recognize via the recording's audio track.

     " -- some precedent for it, among other Council races," Hackett was saying.  "We've decided to follow their lead on this.  Your Spectre oaths supersede your oaths of loyalty to the Alliance military, so technically you're no longer an Alliance Commander -- although the _Normandy_ will remain an Alliance ship."

     "Right."  Shepard's voice was dry, amused.  "So you can't command me, but you can commandeer my ship and crew, and have me stranded on any godforsaken rock you want."

     Hackett's gravelly laugh was easy to hear.  "That's the long and short of it, yes.  We'll allow you to retain your bars and uniform and rank as a courtesy, though.  You're still Commander Shepard, whatever else you become, so long as you serve humanity to the best of your abilities."

     "Understood, sir.  And thank you."  In the vid, Shepard suddenly frowned to himself.  Got to his feet, with a familiar restlessness, and began to pace.  "Sir.  If I'm no longer an Alliance officer -- "  And then he stopped.

     "Yes?"

     "Nothing, sir.  My apologies.  If there's nothing else?"

     "Nothing else.  Hackett out."

     And in the vid, Shepard stood staring at the screen for a long, pent while.

     Alenko checked the timestamp.  A month before _We need to talk._   Two months before Virmire.

     It wasn't that he hadn't noticed Shepard's attraction to him, back then.  Hell, he'd _felt_ it practically radiating through the man's skin, the same way Shepard seemed to radiate confidence or fury or inhuman determination.  It had been there in the warmth of his voice, the hint of teasing in some of his words.  It had been there in the hand on Alenko's workbench -- close to Alenko's hand where it sat not six inches away.  Never closer.  Shepard didn't touch uninvited.  Didn't invade personal space, though he stopped just at its boundary, offering himself for consideration and perhaps an invitation to close.  Shepard looked but didn't leer.  Suggested but didn't demand.

     And Alenko had noticed.  (God, how he'd noticed.)  He'd known what it meant, that Shepard was being so careful.  He'd been glad for that consideration.

     But he hadn't been brave enough to do anything about it.

     And when Shepard had finally tried to broach the hesitation between them, Alenko had panicked.  Fled, and thrown up the only barrier he knew would prevent Shepard from pursuing:  propriety.  _Whatever you say, sir.  I'll do anything you want, sir.  You're my commanding officer, sir.  Stroke-off in your quarters?  Yes, sir.  Blowjob?  Yes, sir.  Love you?  Yes, sir.  As you command._  

     And Shepard had backed off at once.  Because, well.  He might not have officially been Alenko's commanding officer anymore, but he wasn't stupid.  The strictures of rank did not vanish just because the rank was cosmetic.  And Shepard was too good a man to pressure Alenko into something Alenko didn't want.

     Except Alenko _had_ wanted it.  He'd just been afraid.

     Stop.  Exit. 

     Scroll to a much later vid -- one he'd watched several times before.  It was footage from after he'd rejoined Shepard, but in Purgatory, which he'd never visited because the lights exacerbated his migraines.  He'd used his Spectre access to get it.  The camera perspective was bad, centered on the bartender to protect against robbery or assault.  Cortez and Shepard leaned against the bar at the far edge of the viewing field.  Audio was useless:  just pounding asari club crap, and not even the good stuff you could hear at Afterlife or Chora's Den.  But some things you didn't need to hear to understand.  Cortez's easy smile and flirting glance.  Shepard's almost shy grin.  They left the bar camera's field and moved into the dance-floor camera's range, and amid all the other gyrating bodies they made just another pair.  Worse dancers than most.  But their dance grew closer, and closer, and then they stopped.  Kissed.  It was brief.  Not sordid or anything.  A suggestion, not a demand.  A promise of more later.

     There were other vids in the queue, later ones, ones from Shepard's quarters, that night and after.  Vids that undoubtedly contained Cortez.

     Instead of clicking on them, Alenko got up and headed for the lift.

#

     Vega, thankfully, wasn't around.  Cortez was engrossed in something on the requisitions console; to judge by the static in the interface, he was probably trying to boost its signal.  Ever diligent.

     "We need to talk," Alenko said.  Then he flinched as he realized he'd said it.

     Cortez, after starting at the sound of his voice, turned to frown at him in puzzlement.  "Officially, or off the record, sir?"

     Belatedly he realized it was the middle of Cortez's shift.  And very very _very_ belatedly, he realized something he had not before:  that Shepard had always approached him at the end of a shift.  Respecting the boundaries, as Alenko himself had just failed to do.

     Damn it.  "Off the record.  But it, uh, it can wait."  He backed up, holding up his hands.  "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt -- "

     "It's okay."  Cortez turned to lean back against the console, taking a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping his fingers with it, unnecessarily as his fingers were spotless.  Habit of a man used to getting his hands dirty.  And a gesture, with its lack of formality or accompanying salute, that conveyed total unconcern for propriety.  _I'm on duty, but those of us who fought alongside Shepard don't stand on duty anyway, do we?_   Respecting the boundaries.  "What do you need?"

     "I -- "  And suddenly, shockingly, Alenko realized he had no idea why he'd come.  He fell silent, staring at Cortez in burgeoning horror.

     Cortez's handkerchief stilled, and for a moment he just looked at Alenko, his gaze disturbingly sharp.  (How were his eyes so blue?  He could've been a biotic at full-amp, with eyes like those.  Kept making Alenko twitchy, like he should put up a barrier or something.)  Then, quietly, he said, "You doing all right, Major?"

     And Alenko said, without thinking, "No."

     Cortez blinked, and Alenko tensed.  If there was any hint of pity --

     But Cortez only sighed, nodding.  "Yeah."  He glanced around the shuttle bay, then jerked his head toward the ready shuttle.  "C'mon."

     It was conspicuous.  There were appearances to consider.  Alenko thought about considering them.

     Then he followed Cortez, and relaxed despite himself as Cortez flicked a panel and the shuttle door sealed behind them.  He knew, from looking at the security queue, that the shuttle's camera feeds were active only when the shuttle was in motion.  Cortez clearly knew it, too.

     _Did that mean he knew someone would see, every time he flirted with Shepard?  Did that mean --_

     He sat down on one of the rear hold seats, looking at his folded hands, and Cortez sat down beside him.  Alenko tried to think of something to say.

     Cortez chuckled.  "Think I gave Shepard his first blowjob ever, up there in the front passenger seat."  He pointed.

     God.  And of course that awakened a vision in Alenko's mind, of Shepard sitting in the long chair, and Cortez crouching before him, and the cock that he had glimpsed in the vids disappearing into Cortez's smiling mouth while Shepard shuddered and let his head fall back and breathed --

     _K-Kaidan.  Oh, fuck.  Kaidan._

     He flinched, violently, his hands clenching in a near-spasm. 

     "I turned him down," he blurted suddenly.  He had not meant to say it.  The words just came.  "Not... not for... _that_ , I mean.  Back -- the first tour, against Saren, when he --  I pushed him away.  Played it off.  And again, when I saw him on Horizon, he asked me to help him and -- "  _You just shut me down, Kaidan._   And then Shepard had gone on to face hell on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, without Alenko at his back.  Doing what needed to be done with the people he could rely on to do it with him.  Alenko hadn't been one of those people.

     That was when he'd shot his chances in the face, really, though he hadn't realized it 'til much later.  Not 'til Shepard was back with the Alliance where he belonged and Alenko was back on the _Normandy_ where _he_ belonged and he'd finally thought, _Stop being a chickenshit_ and he'd asked Shepard to meet him on the Citadel for a sandwich.  Only then had he overheard Ken and Gabby tittering about how they could hear Shepard moaning through the heat diffusion tubes some downshifts, moaning and cursing and _begging_ in a breathless broken voice, what the hell was Cortez _doing_ to him --

     Yeah.  So. 

     Shepard had agreed to meet.  They'd had a sandwich.  Shepard had said, _You're my brother, Kaidan._   And Alenko had made himself smile and say something amusing in response.  Couldn't remember what.

     Cortez was nodding.  "Yeah.  Thought so."

     _Is it so obvious?_

     "I saw the way you looked at him, Major.  And the way he looked at you."  He felt Cortez's eyes on the side of his face.  "I figured something had happened."

     "No." Nothing had happened, except that he'd been a coward and had let down the man he loved when Shepard needed him most and it was _his own damned fault_ that nothing had happened.  "I was afraid, at first.  And then, when I wasn't..."  Cortez.

     "Ah."  Cortez sighed and sat back.  He said nothing for awhile, and Alenko began to think there would be nothing more.  But then Cortez said, "He almost let me get away, too."

     "What?"

     Cortez shrugged.  "When I was finally ready.  When he finally decided to drop some hints.  I asked him to dance and he said no.  I warned him.  'Don't let me slip away,' I said."

     Alenko had seen the result.  Shepard moving awkwardly to the dance floor, Cortez flowing like a panther in his wake, eyes fixed steadily on Shepard's back.  (When Cortez wanted, he didn't hesitate or waver.  He, far more than Alenko, deserved to be at Shepard's side.)  The kiss.  The promise.  Moaning and begging through the heat diffusion tubes.

     "He was always scared," Cortez said, and Alenko frowned.

     "What?"

     Cortez shrugged, and Alenko finally looked at him.  Cortez's face was as lively as ever, his lips curved in that omnipresent smile -- but the smile did not reach his eyes, for once.  For the first time it occurred to Alenko that _He's lost the man he loved for the second time_.  And here they were talking about it, rubbing it in, because Alenko was too weak to wrap his head around it on his own.

     _God, I'm so fucking selfish._

     He considered hating himself for this, and actually managed to achieve a bit.

     "Scared," Cortez continued, speaking softer now.  "Of failing when it really mattered.  Of letting the galaxy down, letting the people he cared about down.  You know all that -- but he also talked about you, Major.  About how he asked too much of you once, and how much it must have hurt you when he did it."

     _"What?"_   Alenko sat up, staring.  "He didn't --  I wasn't -- "

     Cortez shrugged.  "It's what he said.  It's why he was afraid of taking up with me.  He worried that it would hurt crew morale.  _My_ morale.  He wondered whether I'd feel like I was being taken advantage of.  He said, 'I did this to a friend once, and almost lost him because of it.'  He never said it was you, but..."

     "He didn't lose me."  But would Shepard have thought so?  After he'd pushed Shepard away twice?  God, yes, obviously yes.  No wonder Shepard had looked so grateful, after everything that had happened, when Alenko finally asked to come back to the _Normandy_.  "I lost _him._ "

     And there was the truth of it.

     "I loved him.  I've always loved him."  The words were coming on their own now.  He couldn't stop them.  They tore his throat coming out and he _couldn't stop them_.  "I was afraid people would think I was just sleeping with him to get ahead, but I _wanted_ him.  You don't know how much."  For every night Shepard had groaned his name, Alenko had fantasized ten times, a hundred.  If he'd had his own room he'd have chafed himself to death.  "At Jump Zero, there were students who -- turians and humans can have sex, did you know?  And Shepard looked at Garrus like -- "  Like he needed someone, anyone, he could rely on.  Except Vakarian preferred women.  "There were students who tried to get favors from the teachers, students who let them, let them, but _I_ never did, I had _integrity_ , he was everything I ever wanted but _integrity_ , what the hell is wrong with me, you loved him more than I did, why do I -- fucking -- _feel_ like this?  Why can't I feel anything _normal_?"

     He was only vaguely aware that he was crying.

     Cortez sighed and took his hand.  "I'd say this is about how normal works," he said.  "Pretty much.  But I don't know about you loving him less than I did.  Past a certain point... Robert, Shepard, it all hurts the same."

     Wasn't that the Reaper-damned truth.

     After that there was nothing to say.  Nothing to do.  Alenko just sat there, tears gradually drying on his face.  Cortez just sat beside him, hand warm and presence steady.  "Sorry," Alenko finally blurted.  "It's you who -- you've got more reason to -- I'm selfish."

     Cortez shrugged.  "So am I."

     "You've got _reason_."

     "So do you."  And then Cortez let out a deep sigh.  "I'm glad you loved him, Major.  Maybe this sounds strange, but it feels...  It's nice, to not be alone in this."

     And as Alenko sat there, frowning and trying to process the words, actually caring about someone else's opinion for the first time in what felt like forever, Cortez got up.  "Stay here as long as you need," he said, "but I'm on duty and need to finish some things.  Later -- "  He glanced at Alenko and then his gaze sort of sidled away, and Alenko had no idea what that meant.  "Well.  You're staying in Shep's, right?"

     Shep's.  "Yes."

     "I can come up, if you want.  Just say when; I've got a key."

     A key.  "I haven't changed anything.  I even feed the damned fish."  Maybe he meant it as a warning.  The room was a minefield of memories for him; how much worse for Cortez, who'd listened to Shepard's fears there?  Made him moan and beg there?  Held him and listened to the throb of the ship with him and --

     Cortez chuckled, almost to himself.  "Yeah, I take your meaning, but...  We used the spot where you're sitting more than we used his cabin.  It's not a problem."

     Oh.

     "Not one moment wasted."  The words were murmured, and Cortez was half turned away as he said them.  Alenko frowned.

     "What?"

     Cortez glanced back, thoughtful.  Then he just shook his head.  "Nothing.  Invite me up, Major, and we'll see what happens.  When you're ready, that is."

     Alenko suddenly had no idea what this meant.

     Then Cortez was gone, and Alenko had the shuttle to himself for awhile.  He didn't use the time for anything in particular, though he thought about it.  He just sat there. 

     And felt.

#

     Waking was a slow and strange thing.  A process of days, weeks, months.  Thankfully, the _Normandy_ crew had light-years to go before they slept, and Alenko had the time he needed.

     It helped that people worried about him, now.  T'soni invited him to her sanctum to discuss things with weight and meaning.  (It was surprisingly heartening to hear that the batarians had cobbled together enough of themselves to survive as a species.)  Vakarian challenged Alenko to a calibration contest over the final repairs to the main gun; the conclusion was foregone, but playing the game made Alenko focus, sharpen.  Vega decided that Alenko needed to learn how to do pull-ups with his mind -- because, infuriatingly, T'soni could already do it -- so he started trying.  Eventually he could manage three without utterly exhausting himself and needing a stack of pancakes to recharge.  Progress.

     He suspected Cortez's hand in the sudden attention, the hovering concern.  Didn't matter.  He got what he needed.

     And then there came a day when they got a burst from an asari cruiser, dragging its way back to Thessia from some hintersystem it had been stranded in, and they made a rendezvous so that T'soni could transfer to that ship.  A few weeks later it happened again, turian warship this time, half torn to shreds by a Reaper's phlanges and barely flying.  Vakarian went over to hitch a ride back to Palaven, and Tali joined him to help re-calibrate their inefficient life support -- and they both stayed, because Tali was tired of dextro paste and wanted some real food.  That was what she'd said, anyway, though Alenko had heard how they spoke to each other, she and Vakarian.  That voice, all the time.  Regardless, they were both gone, and suddenly the _Normandy_ was an all-human ship again.  (Except for Edi, who _was_ the ship.)  It felt strange to have it so.

     And then one day he found himself staring at the easy, lithe way Cortez strode across the mess hall.  And then one night Cortez said, "You doing all right, Major?" and there was a shiver all along Alenko's skin because it was in _that voice_.  It wasn't as if he hadn't _noticed_ Cortez's attraction to him, after all.  And felt it himself, in turn.

     And then one morning he woke up in Shepard's bed, stiff and aching and wanting to jerk off and thinking, _Jesus, how long has it been since I got laid?_   and realizing he couldn't remember.  And realizing he didn't have to continue being celibate unless he wanted to.  And realizing he didn't have to worry about what anyone thought, either, because Shepard hadn't, and no one on the ship cared.  Life was too Reaper-damned short, and

     _Not one moment wasted._

     Right.

     So he invited Cortez up that evening.

     Cortez strolled in like a panther, all easy smile and biotic-blue eyes, and if there was a shiver of electric tension in the air it was probably just that weird synthetic DNA they all had now.

     "I'm not Shepard," Alenko blurted.  Not what he'd meant to say.  His mouth just did what it wanted sometimes.

     Cortez shrugged, trotting down the steps toward him.  "Neither am I."

     "I just --  I want you to know I don't -- _expect_ anything."

     "That would be a real shame, Major," said Cortez, and the rank didn't sound wrong in this context, because Cortez didn't actually care and Alenko didn't either.  Then Cortez was stripping off his shirt in one smooth movement, and apparently yanking all the breath out of Alenko's lungs as he did so.  "Because I'm expecting _a lot_."

     Not love, of course.  It wasn't like that.  Not yet, anyway.

     But they had been drawn together, because of Shepard.  And they were alive -- _really_ alive, not just walking around and getting their work done but smiling, caring, grieving, lusting.  Still _able_ to love.  Because Shepard.  And they had a lot of time left in which to do it.  Because Shepard. 

     Would've been a shame to waste any of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Not really planning to write for ME (Wargoddess' muse: MWAHAHAHA that's what she said about DA fandom), but it's always bugged me a little that to romance Cortez, you have to inflict lovers' grief on him twice over. Even if Shepard lives, Steve won't know it for awhile. I think he'll have the support network to handle it the second time around, and his new philosophy -- not one moment wasted -- will probably keep him safe. But it's still awful, and I started to wonder what else might help him through it. And then it occurred to me that Kaidan wouldn't be able to help much, because Kaidan's a walking bag of Issues and one of those Issues would be that he'd carried a torch for Shepard for years... and thus this story was born.
> 
> It was surprisingly awkward to write only people's family names. I've read enough ME 'fics at this point that the fannish conventions -- given names for some characters, family names for others -- had sort of permeated my fanon. But IMO, Alenko's too formal to use anyone's given name. (Also, I kept slipping into present tense while writing this. The hell?)


End file.
